The Weekly Share

My 2nd trip to Cherry Hill Orchard this past week was a success.  My 1st attempt to pick cherries was met with whole trees of split and rotted fruit.  But 4 days of hot, dry weather allowed those cherries that had been unripe on Monday to ripen to perfection by Thursday!  The dark, sweet cherries were a lost cause.  They ripened earliest.  The ones I picked on Thursday were light, sweet cherries.  They are sweet and juicy with more of a bright red skin, rather than the deep purply-red of the dark sweets.

beautiful light sweet cherries

I picked 9.2 lbs.  Some of those are going to my mother-in-law, since she struck out with me on Monday.  The rest…  Well, I’m sure we’ll eat some just as they are.  I will freeze some.  I will coat some in chocolate (Mmmmmm!).  I will soak some in rum (MMMMMMM!).  Maybe I will coat some rum cherries in chocolate (OMG!)

Yum!

My Mother-in-law and I struck out at the pick-your-own cherry orchard at Cherry Hill Orchards yesterday.  All of the rain has caused many of the cherries to rot on the trees.  The cherries that were not rotten or split were either squishy or sour.    It was so sad to see all of those lovely fruits rotting away (OK – it was a little gross, too!).  The gentleman I spoke with at the weigh-in booth said that the harvest season is really only a few days long, so there is no chance of the crop “coming back.” There were still many unripe cherries on the trees, so I will head back out later this week to see if a few days of sunshine can help the last round of cherries.

I forgot to take my camera, but trust me, you do not want to see what a tree full of rotting cherries looks like.  It will make you cry!

We came home with less than a pound of cherries to split between us – here is my take:

So sad!

We’ve had great luck at Cherry Hill Orchards for all kinds of fruit: cherries, peaches, nectarines, apples.  The last 2 years have been great for cherries.  I think we brought home 19 pounds of cherries the 1st year we did it (note to self: that is A LOT of cherries!).  So this is not a good “cherry” year, but nectarines and peaches are right around the corner!  Yay!

Do you go to a PYO farm?  What do you pick?  What was your best crop ever?